Monday, January 30, 1934
Daily Nebraskan
r
vuit owners revenue
convenient, now leal
7
Hie Supreme Court reerntlvHrri(w
that I am not a criminal after all. Thi3
came as an enormous relief to me and
to the nine million other owners of
video-cassette recorders who had been
accused of breaking the copyright law
in oiir living room.-
During an ccht-ycar suit by Ameri
can moviemakers against the Sony
corporation, VCRs had acquired a
reputation as part of the video demi-
t
A.
Ellen
Goodman
monde. Jack Valenti, the colorful head
of the Motion Picture Association of
America, oncexrompared VCRs to "mil
lions of little tapeworms" eating away
at the American movie industry.
The notion behind the suit was that
the mere existence of a home recorder
enticed law-abiding citizens into push
ing bad Juittpns. We would tape a
movie on television and "library" it
away for endless replays. This would
cut into or should I say choke the
movie resale and rerun business.
I was always touched by the ego
behind this argument. The idea that
we would want $8 video-cassettes of
Gidgct for our re-viewing pleasure was
a bit bizarre. How many movies can
you bear to see twice? Okay, besides
Casablanca?
But now that we are off the hook, or
the docket, and no longer need fear the
video cops, I think it is time for nine
million of us to confess the real motive
for our almost-crime: Revenge. The
VCR is the only weapon for the citizens'
revenge against television.
Think about it for a minute. What is
it that you hate the most about televi
sion? I'm not talking about a dreadful ;
program. We've always had a weapon
against that: the off button. What is it
that you hate about television you
want to watch?
My own pet peeve is that the tube is
fundamentally anti-sociaL It's bossy. It
waits for no one. We have to be there
when the program is there, or well
miss it like a one-time bus.
How many family conversations have
been cut short by the urgency of "IH
miss my program"? How many tele
phone calls have to be returned "when
it's over"? How many dinner hours are
planned around the news, how many
kids are tucked in during commercials,
how many parents compete for atten
tion with the video-dictator?
Justice Stevens wrote that the aver
age family uses the VCR for time
shifting, to watch a program at a more
convenient hour. True, but I have a
theory that time-shifting is really con
trol-shifting. A program on tape is like
a book. We can pick it up and put it
down. We can stop the show, move the
wash Into the dryer, settle a fijht and
start again. We beat the tube.
But the sweetest piece of revenge
comes from the word that didnt make
it into the Supreme Court brief: zap
ping. Zapping is what we in the shad
owy world of VCR owners do to com
mercials. We push the fast-forward
button right through the buggers.
Some of my moments of greatest
personal pleasure in the six months
since we adopted a VCR have been
spent zapping hemorrhoid commer
cials on the network news. I now zap
all the commercials. I zap to the
memory of white tornados past. I zap
headaches, arthritis, bad breath and
laundry detergent. I zap diet-drink
maidens and hand-lotion mavens.
Decades of despising commercials now
motivate the hand that zaps for fun. If
it ever becomes illegal, they will find
zap-tracks on my forefinger.
I am far from alone in this thrill
seeking adventure. One study shows
that a full 86 percent of the VCR
owners fast-forward past the com
mercials. The Supreme Court may have
ruled us innocent, but we zap the
entire economic basis of the television
industry.
Any day now, I am sure the enter
tainment moguls will be in the halls of
Congress trying to get them to rework
the copyright laws and put a royalty
fee on videotapes. But they are wildly
beside the point.
With apologies to Jack Valenti, the
problem isn't that a library of tapes
could strangle the movie industry. It's
that wiping out commercials could
entirely and joyfully upend the TV
industry. Take the word of The Boston
Zapper. : w
C1S34, Tht Boston Globe Newspaper
Company Washington Post V.'rKart Group
Correction
The Daily Nebraskan incorrect
ly reported in the Eric Peterson
column of Jan. 26 that UNO
faculty members received a 6.6
percent pay increase for the cur
rent fiscal year.
The pay hike, which was order
ed by the Commission of Indus
trial Relations, was retroactive
for the 1932-83 fiscal year. Tech
nically, UNL faculty members re
ceived a 5 percent increase for
1982-83, bat it was partially de
ferred so that the actual raise
amounted to approximately 2.5
percent.
The Daily Nebraskan regrets
the error.
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